Opinion
FROM SAK TO CHIK: AN ESSAY ON CLASSICAL LEADERSHIP FAILURE By UMAR ARDO, Ph.D
Published
1 year agoon
In 2015, the campaign slogan of APC’s presidential candidate, Mohammadu Buhari, was ‘APC SAK’.
By this, Buhari was urging the electorate, especially of Northern Nigeria, to vote APC all through from top to bottom. In return, he promised that the ensuing APC government he would head will solve the teething problems of the country.
Specifically, he named economy, insecurity and corruption as priority areas. From one campaign lecture to the other, the APC presidential candidate was hard on the PDP, accusing the then governing party of destroying the fabric of the Nigerian society in its 16 years rule. Understandably, majority of the electorate believed him and, particularly the electorate of Northern Nigeria (except for the lone state of Taraba), voted ‘APC SAK’.
At the return of all election results, APC won the presidency, 24 state governors and almost 2/3 seats in the National and State Assemblies. Thus, Buhari was elected president; and by that, Nigerians had fulfilled their own side of the social contract. Having been installed to power, it is then the turn of President Buhari, as head of the APC regime, to fulfill the promises made to the Nigerian electorate.
But more than seven years in office, with less than a year to go, it is clear that the President Buhari-led APC Administration has failed to fulfill its core promises. The facts are indisputable.
To start with, the economy has not improved; rather, it virtually collapsed. The national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), representing the total value of all economic activities in the country, has nosed-dived and remained down, pushing the country into almost a state of permanent recession. With the value of the naira plummeting to an exchange rate of N610 to $1 today, and the resulting inflation sending many Nigerians below poverty line into state of deprivation and destitution, Nigeria is pronounced the poverty capital of the world.
On insecurity, the situation is no better. In fact, like the economy, things have gone from bad to worse. Not only that the dreaded Boko Haram insurgency is still rampaging, pillaging and killing like never before, thus belying government’s claims of ‘technically defeating’ the terrorist group, but also the group has grown in power and influence, transforming into what is now known as The Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP). From its main base in the Lake Chad region, ISWAP has intensified its fierce and deadly guerrilla war, carving a territory to itself, setting up governance, imposing levies and taxes, facilitating commerce and cultivating support among local inhabitants.
In addition, banditry, kidnappings, internecine communal genocides, cultism, highway robberies, militancy, and violence of unimaginable propositions have become common phenomena in virtually all states of the federation, overwhelming the country’s security system.
To all intents and purposes, nobody and nowhere is safe as there is practically no governance in all rural communities across the country. Recognizing this fact, many communities and states of the country had to establish their own local militias and security units to protect themselves. Consequently, Nigeria is ranked No.3 on the list of world’s most terrorized nations.
The same failure is as well evident in the fight against corruption. With the appointment of Ibrahim Magu, the head of the EFCC, the key anti-corruption agency, in contravention of the law, the fight against corruption started on a wrong footing.
On account of security reports accusing him of corruption, thus denting his moral integrity to prosecute the war, the senate declined to confirm his nomination as required by law. Still, the president put him in office for about five years, thus calling to question the sincerity of the administration’s commitment to fight corruption. Not surprisingly, Magu himself ended up being further accused by his supervising minister, Abubakar Malami, of re-looting recovered corruption loots and ignominiously removed from office. In effect, the twin evils of bribery and corruption continued to thrive unabated under the Buhari-led APC regime. Hence, all over the country, persons on corruption allegations and charges are roaming about free. Many have even bribed themselves back into public offices either in elective or appointive capacities.
There are also widespread outrageous opened displays of stupendous wealth by several serving public officers, the president’s family members and close associates, hitherto living from hand to mouth, suggesting corrupt enrichments within the new government. Nigeria today is ranked as world’s fourth corrupt nation on the index of Transparency International.
Aside from these core issues, there are also many other aspects of our national life that have similarly deteriorated under the Buhari administration, principal of which is ethical decay. What is morally wrong, has today become politically right. Hence, public operators, elective, appointive and bureaucratic, have become society’s nouveau rich and being celebrated for that. One needs not list instances, for they are endless!
For a regime that promised so much and delivered so little on all scores, the bloom, as botanists would say, is well off the roses in its garden.
This dismal failure to deliver, in my opinion, is as a result of six major failings in leadership.
First, there is incapacity to provide strong and decisive leadership by President Buhari himself. Even though the regime’s apologists would tend to blame these failings on the enormity of the misdeeds of past regimes, or the dislocated structures of our society, the real reason is lack of leadership’s firmness, confidence and direction from the president. Almost any problem can be successfully resolved if there is effective leadership at the top. All that is required is the force of personal leadership, and this is manifestly lacking in President Buhari.
After nearly six years on the saddle, a clearer pattern of the president’s leadership style is deducible. He can rightly be termed as a passive leader – one who allows problems to solve themselves, refusing to intervene even when it is absolutely necessary!
Given that problems don’t solve themselves, it ultimately requires direction and prodding of the leadership. Principles and practices of good leadership demand for one dominant unifying purpose – i.e. to facilitate clear decisions and enable prompt, efficient execution of those decisions!
Yes, some degree of collective decision-making of the cabinet on critical national issues is necessary, but such collective decisions still need a single leading mind that keeps close control and supervision of the overall strategic objectives and direction of government. This entails the leader taking full charge and responsibility for the act and outcome of whatever events government sets in motion. Where this is lacking then there is a problem. And this is simply absent in President Buhari’s leadership.
Second, even in organizing for collective decisions, President Buhari exhibits another serious leadership deficit. Over the years, it became all too clear that there is lack of harmony and coordination among the various segments and agencies of the executive organ headed by him. There have been conflicts and acrimony among members of the government that affected the regime’s general output.
In all these, the president prefers to let his appointees thrash out issues and settle differences and disagreements themselves, with minimum or no intervention from him. This is a wrong approach to leadership, as harmony and cooperation are bench phrases for a successful government, the role of the leader in ensuring this condition is essential.
Third, President Buhari seems to have little value for ideas and innovations. The essence of collective decision-making in a government is to aggregate various ideas from cabinet members with a view to evolving the best policy option for problems at hand. As we all know, there are plenty of good ideas out there if only they can be listened to and harnessed into use by the leadership. But the president has proven to be a non-listening leader.
This explains his rebuffing of all genuine and well-meaning calls on him to amend his ways on certain national issues. He even alienated ideas of his key appointees through his misconceived directive to his Cabinet Ministers to pass through his Chief of Staff in dealing, communicating and meeting with him. Needless to say, this is a bureaucratic process that will deliver nothing but mediocrity. A serious leader must evaluate and guide firsthand the initiatives of his appointees.
In a situation where another appointee becomes responsible for evaluating and deciding on policy initiatives of other appointees, not only an unnecessary bureaucratic bottleneck is created but the process also diminishes the zeal, confidence and energy of the appointee concerned, ultimately hindering the general policy outputs of government. Naturally, this lack of direct evaluation and guidance of the president on the initiatives of his appointees will render the government slow, weak and bankrupt in ideas, and in policy formulation and implementation. Consequently, nothing will be properly or usefully designed and decided, as all initiatives and energy are paralyzed. Under such a situation nothing much can be achieved.
Fourth, whatever efforts put forth by other members of the government are mired in confusion from the outset owing chiefly to lack of good understanding of the real issues at play, thereby resulting in poor policy options and choices. The reason being that most of the personnel appointed do not fit the offices they occupy. Sourcing the right personnel to occupy key offices of government is no doubt important, but the refinement of the personnel to fit the offices they are assigned to is even more important.
To this end, sufficient thought ought to be given in matching the character of the individual appointee with the demands of the office assigned to him or her. In this, President Buhari also failed measurably. A purposeful leadership must always have its policy makers strive to conceive and implement new initiatives so as to create and maintain positive momentum for the government. And this can only happen if the right persons hold the right offices.
The fifth failing in President Buhari’s leadership style is temporization. The president hardly takes decision on virtually every issue. In fact, it looks as if the president hates taking decisions at all until compelled to do so. We have seen that in him time and again on even the most serious issues, including the formation of his cabinet, acting on corruption allegations against his appointees, changing his Service Chiefs, injecting capable hands into government, etc. Not that long period of procrastination necessarily gives cause to taking right decisions, or decisiveness leads to taking bad decisions, but temporization is hardly a virtue in the books of leadership.
In fact, as the saying goes, the more easy it is for a leader to do nothing, the harder it is for him to achieve anything. A good leader must be decisive; he must abhor procrastination, temporization and equivocation. A critical virtue of an effective leader is ‘to ponder, then act and take full responsibility’. We have seen this virtue in President Obasanjo; for whatever may be said of Obasanjo’s leadership faults, he was undoubtedly, to his eternal credit, at least a decisive leader. President Buhari is not!
Sixth, arising from all the above, there is lack of strategic imagination on the need to and ways of breaking out of this stalemate. These latter failings are directly related to the first – leadership failure at the top!
These manifest deficiencies, other than bringing the country to a complete halt (Chik), are both unsuited to the active requirements of a country in dire need of peace, economic growth and political stability, and uninspiring, discouraging and disappointing to zealous and devoted politicians, intellectuals, bureaucrats, patriotic citizens, etc. who are eager to see Nigeria leap forward into a developed world in the 21st century.
I concede, however, that consequences of leadership failure may vary with the severity of the situation on ground. If, for example, institutions in the polity are strong and social conditions fairly stable, like in the United States, leadership failure may not be so disastrous.
We have just seen that in President Donald Trump’s leadership failures. But if the polity is weak with fragile institutions, demanding drastic changes and innovations to fix, like the Nigerian situation now and in 2015, under such circumstances, failure to provide strong, visionary and inspirational leadership to actively lead the country through the needed changes would be catastrophic.
But in both instances, leadership failure erodes a key characteristic of effective governance – trust! Good leadership creates conditions of trust by making clear mission and achieving it. Failures therefore erode people’s trust and make it impossible for the leader to succeed. Therefore, without a drastic change on the part of citizens against their condescending attitudes to such leadership failings, I am afraid will continue wobbling till it crashes to the ground.
And Buhari’s presidency will be for Nigeria just another eight years of squandered time and resources that offered no solutions for salvaging the country, redeeming and securing her future. The regime will be, as Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, would say, “like a cloud that passes on without dropping rain”.
This is where SAK has brought us all to – CHIK!
*** Opinions expressed in this article do not represent the views of SunriseNigeria, but wholly of the writer.
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The uneasy thing about Nigeria’s Independence Day celebration reminds me of Frederick Douglas’s thought-provoking speech which he delivered on the 4th of July, titled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”. This famous and powerful address was made on July, 5, 1852. Douglas, an African American abolitionist and former slave questioned the hypocrisy of celebrating American independence and freedom while the black people were inhumanely treated under the shackles and manacles of slavery.
In that famous address, Douglas argued passionately that the celebration of freedom and independence was a hollow gesture for the African slaves and thus challenged the moral conscience of white America, urging them to confront the moral depravity and injustice of the institution of slavery.
Douglass began by acknowledging the significance and achievements of the American Revolution, praising the architects of the American republic for their commitment to the cause of liberty and justice. However, he quickly shifted his focus to highlight the stark contrast between the ideals professed and captured in the preamble of the American constitution -“we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal…” in the one, and in the other, the horrid condition experienced by the enslaved African people. In that speech, Douglass draws heavily and eloquently from the Bible, the American Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence to reveal the contradictions and ironies inherent in the American society.
It is in that sense, that we as Nigerians must reflect on Frederick Douglass’ powerful words and draw parallels from that knowledge and experience with a view to inspire us to critically examine the significance of Nigeria’s independence. Although Nigeria’s independence from colonial rule on October, 1, 1960 marked a pivotal moment in our history however, it also revealed the complexities and challenges that accompany self-rule 63 years down the line.
Like Douglass, who highlighted the stark contrast between the ideals of liberty and the reality of slavery in America, we must also interrogate and understand the overreaching implications of independence for Nigerians.
Independence should not just be about political freedom or self-rule, but entails also, the responsibility to harness our God given potentials-both human and natural in order to live up to the promise of a free and prosperous nation. This would mean, tackling poverty, misery, unemployment, inequality, illiteracy, insecurity, corruption and ethno-religious tension that persist within the Nigerian society.
Similar to Douglass’ call for justice and equality for all Americans, it is crucial to recognize the fact that true independence encompasses freedom from man-made hardship and suffering, systemic oppression and other forms of insecurity.
Frederick Douglass believed that the Fourth of July should be a time for reflection and self-assessment, urging Americans to confront the hypocrisy of celebrating freedom while denying it to a significant portion of the population. In the same vein, Nigeria’s Independence Day should prompt us to critically examine the discrepancies between the nation’s founding principles and the troubling reality of a vast majority of Nigerians today. By every conceivable standard, Nigeria is a deeply troubled nation.
We therefore must engage in introspection and ask ourselves challenging questions: Are we truly living up to the ideals of a united, prosperous, and just nation? Are all Nigerians able to fully enjoy the benefits of independence, irrespective of their social class, religious and ethnic background? How can we genuinely address the governance deficit and put an end to the failure of successive administrations with a view to better the social and economic conditions of all citizens in Nigeria? Do we really deserve the kind of leadership foisted on us for decades? Must Nigerians continue to adjust and readjust in order to survive under the grip of a highly perfidious elite operating an economic and political system that thrives on injustice and corruption?
Think about it!
Joelengs
01.10.2023.
Opinion
Published
3 months agoon
September 15, 2023
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, says Nigeria is “gradually losing one of the biggest intangible assets that make a nation strong, which is respect for the rule of law”.
In a statement he posted on his X handle in celebration of International Democracy Day on Friday, Obi said “our dear nation has continued to swing dangerously away from the boundaries of true democracy”.
He said that Nigerians must “remind ourselves of the need to work together to build and deepen our nation’s democracy”.
The former Anambra State governor called on all Nigerians to remain committed to building and reinforcing our nation’s democracy.
“As witnessed in the country today, the mindless erosion of the very ideals and tenets on which Nigeria’s democracy was built, if not checked, will only push the nation deeper into lawlessness,” he wrote.
“The current trend of endemic corruption, abuse of the constitution, disrespect for the rule of law, and transactional politics which cuts across the executive, legislative, and judicial arms of government, have continued to conflict with our nation’s enforcement of democracy.
Source: (thenigerianlawyer.com)
Opinion
Admiral Jibrin Akpabana: The Definitive Choice for Kogi East to Reclaim Power
Published
4 months agoon
August 10, 2023
By Comrade Shaibu O
…
In the lead-up to the pivotal Kogi State Governorship election, the residents of Kogi East, particularly the Igalas, find themselves at a crossroads, compelled to closely scrutinize the political landscape and deliberate on the most fitting candidate to challenge the incumbent Yahaya Bello’s bid for an extended tenure through Ahmed Usman Ododo.
The impending decision carries profound implications, as the Igalas, who have been witnessing a gradual erosion of their majority status, must strategically navigate this juncture in their political trajectory. Amidst the complex interplay of contenders, one figure stands out as a beacon of hope and transformation: Admiral Usman Jibrin, affectionately known as Akpabana, representing the Accord party.
In order to fully comprehend the stakes at hand, it is paramount for the Easterners to internalize a pivotal truth: their prospects for success hinge on presenting a unified front in the upcoming election. A fragmented approach, characterized by multiple contenders, could inadvertently pave the way for their collective failure. Hence, the Easterners ought to acknowledge that a singular, unifying figure is needed to carry their aspirations forward, and that figure is none other than Admiral Usman Jibrin.
While it is undeniable that Hon. Muritala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party has garnered substantial popularity, particularly among the youth demographic, it is imperative to acknowledge that popularity alone cannot guarantee victory in the political arena. Ajaka’s commendable financial capabilities and potential as a leader notwithstanding, the formidable challenge presented by Bello necessitates a more comprehensive strategy. The Kogi election landscape echoes the adage, “The Kingdom of God suffered violence and the violent took it by force.” Triumphing over Bello’s entrenched influence demands unwavering determination and an audacious display of political force.
Governor Yahaya Bello has demonstrated an acute understanding of power dynamics and has wielded his authority with unapologetic vigor since assuming office. The echoes of his previous triumphs in 2019 serve as a stark reminder of his tenacity and the necessity of matching his resolve with equal determination. The assertion that Bello’s hold over the East has waned due to personnel changes in his camp is a misguided notion.
The new cadre of individuals supporting Bello in the East have proven themselves to be even more formidable and relentless than their predecessors.
Admiral Jibrin Akpabana is a figure whose very name reverberates with promise and the potential to disrupt Bello’s dominion. This assertion is substantiated by the fact that Governorship elections are intricately interwoven with national influence, and in this realm, Jibrin stands on a more favorable footing. Unlike Muritala Ajaka, who has seen his national influence dwindled since departing from the All Progressives Congress, Jibrin’s affiliations, including his role as a former Chief of Naval Staff and his familial connection to a former Chief of Defense Staff (Admiral Ibrahim Ogohi), positions him as an unassailable force, impervious to Bello’s manipulation of security agencies.
It is imperative to grasp that victory in a gubernatorial race transcends monetary largesse. The bedrock of a successful campaign lies in cultivating a cadre of loyal supporters who are willing to lay down their lives for the cause. Admiral Akpabana boasts a robust network across the state, built upon his legacy as a naval leader, wherein job opportunities were facilitated for numerous individuals. Kogi Easterners stand to capitalize on this deep-seated loyalty, galvanizing it into an insurmountable wave of support.
Furthermore, Admiral Jibrin has meticulously cultivated an array of influential backers on the national stage. While the identities of these individuals may remain shrouded in secrecy, the telltale signs were unmistakably on display during his son’s recent wedding, where distinguished personalities graced the occasion. These influencers hold the key to determining the fate of Kogi’s governance.
The power of social media, while undeniably significant in contemporary politics, should not be overestimated. The tale of Peter Obi’s campaign serves as a poignant reminder that virtual support does not invariably translate into electoral victory. In contrast, Admiral Jibrin has garnered the unwavering endorsement of key political elders and opinion shapers in the East, signaling a formidable groundswell of support. These venerable figures possess the resources and influence to decisively tip the scales in Jibrin’s favor.
As the days unfold, Admiral Jibrin Akpabana is poised to ascend the Eastern social media landscape, wielding an arsenal of compelling narratives and rallying cries.
The winds of change are palpable, as erstwhile supporters of Muritala Ajaka recognize the pragmatic imperatives and align themselves with Jibrin’s compelling vision. The writing on the wall indicates a shift of seismic proportions, compelling a collective shift towards Akpabana, propelled by the realization that, in the best interests of the Igalas, Muri must gallantly cede the spotlight to the Admiral, whose prospects shine luminously on the horizon.
The impending Kogi State Governorship election beckons the Easterners to embrace Admiral Jibrin Akpabana as the transformative leader capable of wresting power from the indomitable Yahaya Bello. With an unparalleled grasp of security agencies, unwavering loyalty from across the state, and a constellation of national backers, Akpabana is primed to restore the East to its rightful place of prominence.
As the tides of change surge inexorably forward, the Easterners stand at a historic crossroads, poised to recalibrate the trajectory of their political destiny by placing their unwavering faith in Admiral Jibrin Akpabana.
Comrade Shaibu O.
Political Analyst
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